The Heron Kings

A historically-inspired fantasy of 96,000 words that will appeal to fans of Joe Abercrombie’s Red Country and Guy Gavriel Kay’s Children of Earth and Sky. Currently represented by Mr. Nathan Hedrick of Standing Stones Literary Agency.

Sister Alessia swore to take no part in the dynastic wars raging across two kingdoms. But when a warlord slaughters her patients and forbids her neutral temple hospital to care for victims from the “wrong” side, she throws off her bloodstained habit and quits the cloister rather than submit.

Still determined to save lives, Alessia attracts a gathering of brutalized peasants, smugglers and deserters fleeing the conflict. But many also crave vengeance, using her roaming forest camp to launch guerrilla raids against the forces of both sides— to steal, to survive, and to get some payback. Alessia struggles to temper their fury as well as tend wounds, consenting to ever greater violence to keep her new charges safe.

These lowborn insurgents alarm both warring factions, who unleash spies, mercenaries and mass crucifixions to exterminate them. While fighting to keep hidden, they uncover a foreign conspiracy to prolong the war by financing both sides at the same time. Trapped between two armies, Alessia will risk the lives she’s saved on a last shot at survival: to present proof of the plot to the very forces hunting them and convince all sides to bring the bloodshed to an end.